I apologize if I'm being dense, but I don't understand how the nearest ancestor can be anything other than the parent. Could you please give an example?
I just want to make sure I haven't sent you off with the wrong expression for your intended usage.
On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 8:48 PM, José Tomás Atria jtatria@gmail.com wrote:
Thank you all for your answers.
I was just tryig to determine if $test/ancestor::element()[1] would be the correct way of getting the nearest ancestor, as I couldn't find whether axes were ordered or not in the xpath specification.
Thanks!
ps: Parent doesn't apply, because the relevant node is not always the parent, but the first node with a given name.
On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 2:45 PM, David Rudel fwqhgads@gmail.com wrote:
Mr. Atria, You left out a key element from the answer you got from stack overflow.
Note that Dimitre's response used a filter expression (path expression) [predicate]
not a simple path expression
The ()s are critical.
$test//child/ancestor-or-self::test[ last() ]
is very different from
($test//child/ancestor-or-self::test)[ last() ]
The ancestor axis is a reverse axis, but when the xpath expression is complete, the sequence of nodes are then put in document order regardless of what order the last axis had.
In any event, I don't understand what is wrong with simply $test/ancestor::element()[1]
Perhaps I don't understand your question (which is simpler than the Stack Overflow question you linked to). But if you are just looking for the nearest ancestor element, then it seems that $test/ancestor::element()[1] should give it to you.
-- entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem